Group Relamping Beats Spot Relamping, Utility Finds

Group relamping offers cost savings when compared with spot relamping, according to an article featured on the Energy Savings Center website of Reliant Energy Retail Holdings, LLC, which provides electricity and energy services to retail customers across Texas and is part of NRG Energy.

"There are a variety of reasons to practice group relamping, in which a set of lamps is replaced at a scheduled time, rather than spot relamping, in which lamps are only replaced when they burn out. Most of these reasons apply to fluorescent and high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps rather than incandescents, which have much shorter lifetimes," the utility says in its online article about the comparison. It displays a cost comparison chart and lists these reasons for the cost savings:

Group relamping requires much less labor per lamp than spot relamping. A worker might take as long as a half hour to retrieve and install a single lamp. If all the materials were on hand for a large number of lamps, a worker could move systematically from fixture to fixture and cut the required time to about 3 minutes per lamp. The process would be less disruptive because group relamping is usually done outside of working hours.

Group relamping is easy to schedule and delegate to outside contractors, who have special equipment and training.

Group relamping provides brighter and more uniform lighting because lamps are replaced before their output has fully depreciated. Direct energy benefits result if the designer has anticipated group relamping and uses a smaller safety factor.

Group relamping offers increased control over the replacement lamps and reduces the chances of mixing incompatible lamps, such as those with different color temperatures.